La morfogénesis como resultado de la transmisión e integración de información biológica

Abstract

In his original paper on the chemical basis of morphogenesis, A.M. Turing [1] proposes a mechanism based on the combined effect of diffusion and two reacting morphogens to explain the emergence of patterns. In the same paper he suggests that this framework can be applied to the case of genetic regulatory networks. This approach has been criticized since the so called morphogenes have been difficult to identify in many cases. In this paper we propose that the effect of diffusion and chemical reactions can be either replaced or complemented by intercellular communication mechanisms. Conceptually this is equivalent to saying that what is effectively diffusing is information. In other words, that information can be treated as the actual morphogene. We present a formalism based on stochastic $\Pi$-calculus that enables us to obtain patterns in a prototypical case, namely, the activator-inhibitor system.